Midnight Stitchers

Martha took this one of me and my table mates! I couldn't figure out which shelf to rest my magnifier on..the first or the second shelf !!

Last night was our "Midnighter's Meeting" for our EGA group. We had such fun. These pics were taken by me at about midnight so we were a bit wilted, but still stitching and having fun! These happy campers above are my dear friends whom you've seen before in my blog, Julia (r) and Patti (l). They are needlepointing. Above are Melissa (r) and her mom. Melissa is well on her way to finishing a gorgeous knitted afghan worked in assorted (at least 60 different!) fingering weight (or sock weight) wools in the connected diamond pattern. It's just an amazingly beautiful thing to behold. I asked her how large it will be, and she said, "Just enough to cover me and go over my head!" LOL Actually, it would have made more sense for me to have had her hold it up so you could see all the colors in it....Deborah not thinking at midnight, it seems! :p Her mom was hand-quilting a mini-quilt in the bowtie pattern for her grandson in sort of Civil War colored fabbies. It was a treat just to sit and watch her. I was sitting with them some of the evening, working on my Cirque des Cercles (bearly) as we were talking and I was watching them! This is interesting about Martha (Gone A Stitchin'....) she's stitching ornies for her children and grandchildren for Christmas. She always trys to give them the same thing...so she was trying out this darling little Santa man. We were laughing because it's her first one, she's less than 1/2 way through it, and she was saying she's already sick and tired of it!!! LOL Notice Martha's great new floor lamp/magnifier, too! I just love it. It's so easily portable and light weight. Martha says it's only about $100. You'll have to go to her blog and email her to find out what the brand is. See my sidebar for her blog addy.

Along with Martha above, is Malinda showing off her absolutely fabulous beading. She one of several in our EGA group who love to bead. If you look closely you can see she's made a beaded hood for a Christmas ornament. It's amazing irl. Actually, beading is big in our group. Patti brought in a beading teacher and nearly everyone learned how to peyote stitch, etc., this Summer....except me! ;] I've decided I can't take up one more handcraft!!! I can only admire this one.

Just lovely cross stitching from one of our sweetly, quiet stitchers! :)Isn't this pretty from one of our stitchers who's been stitching more years than some of are old!!??? An example of needlepoint using Gumnuts threads from Austrailia. This is so beautiful irl. It's done on congress cloth, I think.

And, a frightfully, happy ending with me in the middle...it's midnight and we've passed our expiration dates! Everyone else is close to home...I have to drive an hour. But, I was well reinforced with coconut lemon creme cake, a small slice of chocolate mousseish cake on the side, and a cuppa about 30 mins. before departure. Yummy!

We had our meeting at the Ronald McDonald's House near the local hospital. It's where all the meetings are held, and we are so grateful they allow us to use the house. We collect items for them; such as bedding and towels. When we have buffet or bring a dish suppers like on Midnighter's, we always make enough to leave for the families who stay there. And, on this night we played Stitcher's Bingo with pennies that were donated to their penny drive to buy something for the House.

Stitcher's Bingo was hilarious!! Everyone got a chance to win, of course. We'd all brought $1 items as prizes for the pot. It was lots of fun. A great game if you want to have fun at your next stitcher's group. We just filled in our bingo cards with our choices of Designers, Fabrics, Fibers, Stitching Tools, and Accessories from the same list passed out to each of us. Then, Martha pulled the names of those things from a hat for the bingo spaces covered by our pennies.

We also played "CLR" for flosses. I'd never heard of this game.... We were told to bring flosses for the game. We had no idea what was going on! Martha brought 3 dice... one with a "C" on it, an "L", an "R", and a "." We each put down 3 skeins of any kind of floss or thread in front of ourselves on the table. One person begins by rolling the 3 dice. "C" stands for "Center," so if it turns up with that you put one floss in the center of the table. "L" stands for "Left" so if you have that, you pass one floss to your left. "R" stands for "Right", you pass one floss to your right. And, "." means you can keep your floss. Once your turn is over you pass the dice to your left. It goes on this way until it comes to the last person still holding a floss. That person wins the center pot! Everybody loved this game, too. Couldn't believe how many gamblers there were amongst us!!! :O

Hope you're stitching happy this week! Hugs, Deb

PS: Yes, Carol, our group does meet at the Ronald McDonald House in Ft. Myers, FL. What a small world! :]